What You Didn't Know About
Scientology

There has been a revival of interest in Scientology recently,
largely driven by the ministrations of Hollywood jackanapes Tom Cruise.

An episode of South Park titled ‘Trapped in the Closet’ aired in late 2005.
The cartoon featured Scientologists Nicole Kidman and John Travolta trying to
coax Cruise out of a closet, a reference to rumors concerning his sexual
preference. Also featured was an L. Ron Hubbard character denigrating Cruise’s
acting ability. The extremely litigious Cruise immediately threatened Paramount
with legal action, and it is unlikely that the episode will air again.

It is perhaps timely to revue some of the history of the ‘church,’ its
membership and especially its mercurial founder Lafayette Ronald Hubbard.

Various Scientology hagiographies of Hubbard are widely divergent from known
facts. This is mainly due to the phantasmagoric history that Hubbard fashioned
for himself and repeated ad nauseum to his followers.

Hubbard would often boast of a distinguished pedigree, claiming descent from
nobility going back to the Norman Invasion. He also claimed at various times to
have been a barn-stormer in a circus, a great white hunter in Africa, an
explorer of the upper Amazon and a heavily decorated naval officer, the
recipient of more than 2 dozen medals and palms. He also claimed that his naval
exploits were the inspiration for Henry Fonda’s character in the film Mister
Roberts. On the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor he stated that he was
the only person to survive the sinking of the destroyer he was on near the coast
of Java and that he swam ashore and lived for weeks on the jungle flora. Later
he would be wounded in the back and kidneys by machine-gun fire, making
urination difficult.

The truth is somewhat more prosaic. In fact, Hubbard’s urinary difficulties
stemmed from a bout of gonorrhea contracted after sex with a prostitute named
Fern. Court documents in Hubbard’s own handwriting later confirmed this.

His shirking in the navy was commented upon several times by superior
officers. In 1942 the US Naval Attache wrote, “…he [Hubbard] became the source
of much trouble […], is not satisfactory for independent duty assignment. He is
garrulous and tries to give the impression of his importance.”

Twenty years later Hubbard would brag to credulous followers that after he
left that particular assignment, it took a captain, several commanders and 15
junior officers to replace him.

Although Scientology accounts claim that Hubbard served in all five theaters
in WWII, more often than not, records find him on the sick list complaining of a
variety of ailments from conjunctivitis to ulcers. These same records show that
he was never engaged in enemy action and that he received only 4 awards, none
for action or combat. Upon being mustered out of the navy, he immediately
applied for disability benefits, often writing to the VA pleading for an
increase citing long bouts of depression and recurring thoughts of suicide.

Hubbard spent his convalescence in Los Angeles. When his terminal leave from
the navy commenced in December 1945, he immediately went to the home of Jack
Parsons in Pasadena. Parsons was a science fiction fan, a rocket and explosives
chemist and a practitioner of black magic. He operated the California branch of
the Ordo Templi Orientis out of his house. The OTO was an advanced secret
society to which high-ranking Freemasons migrate in a process of occult
succession. OTO rituals were fine-tuned by British Satanist, magician and
Intelligence agent Aleister Crowley.

Parsons was in communication with Crowley, regularly informing him of the
progress of the California chapter. Hubbard also felt a keen bond with Crowley
after reading his Book of the Law in the Library of Congress as a
teenager. Later, in a taped 1952 lecture Hubbard would thank, “…the late
Aleister Crowley, my very good friend.”

Parsons and Hubbard engaged in various black magic rituals over many nights
in an effort to produce a homunculus. Although reports of their association make
interesting reading, the two eventually had a falling-out and Hubbard would
abscond to Florida with Parsons’ mistress and life savings. At the time, Crowley
wrote to Karl Germer, the OTO head in America. A keen student of human nature,
Crowley observed, "Suspect Ron playing confidence trick. Jack evidently weak
fool. Obvious victim of prowling swindlers."

Parsons would later self-immolate in his garage during an experiment that
went awry. His mother committed suicide the following day. Police would find
home movies of Parsons having sex with his mother and the family dog.

Thereafter, L. Ron Hubbard spent several years grinding out science fiction
and short stories for New York pulp magazines for a penny a word. Although his
output was prodigious, he didn’t see any real money until the 1950 publication
of his book Dianetics, a self-help manual tinged with the eastern
mysticism that Hubbard allegedly picked up from his years of wandering the Far
East as a lad, engaging Tibetan shamans and Chinese mystics in philosophical
discourse.

In truth, Hubbard loathed China, having visited it as a teenager very briefly
while en route to see his father who was stationed in Guam. At the time,
Hubbard’s main lament was for all of the ‘Chinks’ despoiling the country. And
the only use he could conceive of for the Great Wall was to convert it into a
roller coaster.

Hubbard would later morph the tenets of Dianetics into the
spiritual crazy glue known as Scientology, employing a confounding nomenclature
sometimes referred to as ‘org-speak.’ The first Church of Scientology was
incorporated in California in 1954. Hubbard claimed that his system could be
used to increase spiritual freedom, intelligence and to produce immortality.
Recruits go through auditing (counseling) sessions of ever escalating cost in
order to be ‘cleared’ of ‘thetans’ (souls). A free soul must purge these body
thetans in order to be truly liberated. Only after investing $100,000 and
countless hours of auditing will the ultimate secret of Scientology be revealed
to the recruit. This is the secret of Xenu.

According to Hubbard eschatology, 70 million years ago the planet Earth, then
known as Teegeeack, had been one of 76 planets of the Galactic Federation that
was badly overpopulated with hundreds of billions of people. The evil overlord
Xenu decreed that excess populations on these planets should be sent to
Teegeeack, put next to volcanoes and blown to pieces. The spirits or thetans of
the victims were implanted with religious and technical images for 36 days. They
were then sent either to Hawaii or Los Palmas to be stuck together in clusters.
Humans are a collection or cluster of body thetans. Xenu was rounded up after
the fact and imprisoned in a mountain. The reader is spared from a comprehensive
rendition of the history of the Galactic Federation.

In a 1983 Penthouse interview, L. Ron Hubbard Jr. stated that he was born
prematurely after his father botched an abortion attempt on his mother. He
claims that his father used copious quantities of drugs and even witnessed him
injecting cocaine. Hubbard Jr. has stated, “I believed in Satanism. There was no
other religion in our house! What a lot of people don’t realize is that
Scientology is black magic spread out over a long time period. It’s stretched
out over a lifetime and you don’t see it. Black magic is the inner core of
Scientology and it is probably the only part that really works. Also, you’ve got
to understand that my father did not worship Satan. He thought he was Satan.”
Ron Hubbard Jr. also claimed that his father practiced something called
‘soul-cracking.’ Hubbard Sr. would apparently beat his many mistresses and shoot
them full of drugs in order to reach a state whereby, like a psychic hammer, he
would break their souls and allow demonic powers to pour through them. Junior
also declared that the Scientology Operating Thetan techniques do the same
thing. Junior would go on to co-author the popular 1987 book L. Ron
Hubbard: Messiah or Madman. In that year the Church listed $503 million
in income.

Two sinister
Scientology graduates of the 60s were Robert DeGrimston and his wife Mary Ann.
He was a former architecture student and she was a former prostitute who
believed herself to be Joseph Goebbels incarnate. Both had an insatiable
preoccupation with death and violence and it is perhaps inevitable that they
ended up in San Francisco in 1967 where they established themselves as The
Process Church of the Final Judgement. They took up residence on Oak St., in the
so-called Devil House, two blocks from where Charles Manson had his ‘family’ and
close by Anton Lavey’s Church of Satan. Processans wandered the Haight sporting
black capes and black suits and preaching a gospel of doom and destruction. The
first edition of Ed Sanders’ book The Family carries an interesting chapter on the
Process Church. But a Chicago lawyer convinced them to sue for defamation and
the offending chapter was deleted from subsequent editions. Robert Degrimston
published several books on war (his favorite theme) and commanded his followers
“THOU SHALT KILL!” Another Process publication urged readers to experience the
pleasures of grave robbing and necrophilia. A rant in the ‘Death’ issue of their
magazine was penned by Charles Manson. Manson’s rap was an amalgam of Process
ideology and the 150 hours of Scientology auditing he’d received during one of
his numerous prison stints (Charlie declared himself a ‘Theta Clear’).

Contrary to popular belief, the Process is still around, having undergone
numerous name changes over the years. The first was the ‘Four-P Movement.’
Author Michael Newton wrote that the cult, “is also deeply involved in white
slavery, child pornography and the international narcotics trade.” Still other
name changes for the Process included The Foundation Church of the Millenium,
The Foundation Faith of God and then Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. Today it is
known as The Best Friends Animal Society and is located in Kanab, Utah. Mary Ann
Degrimston makes her home there along with several other former members. Gone
are the days when Process members journeyed to San Quentin to interview Manson.
Gone too are all references to Satan and doomsday. Members now softpeddle their
involvement in the Process Church of the Final Judgement citing juvenile
misguidance. The goal of the reformed church now is to save animals. The large
compound in southern Utah is their testament to this end. And the animal
sanctuary is a huge cash cow. In 2003 the Society raised more than $20 million.
Perhaps the Degrimstons were wise to abandon Scientology when they did. Robert
currently works in New York City as a business consultant.

The Sea Org-

In the 1960s,
after several years of generating vast sums from credulous recruits, Hubbard
took Scientology to sea, in order to stymie various governments who were set to
move against his church for fraud and tax evasion. He purchased several large
ships and drifted around the Mediterranean searching ancient archaeological
sites where he’d lived past lives. These adventures lasted for almost a decade.

He devised cruel methods of discipline for recalcitrant followers that were
enforced on a whim. Once, he confined a 5-year old deaf mute to a chain locker,
the cold, wet, rat-infested area of the ship where anchor chains are stored.

Other malefactors were consigned to rusty tanks below decks where they
chiseled off rust while standing in filthy bilge water. Oxygen was supplied via
tubes. Other Scientologists would periodically pound on the hull to ensure that
the scraping continued, oftentimes the punishment lasting for days. A food
bucket would be lowered down to the offending parties. Stories of shipboard
abuse are legion and too numerous to recount in this limited forum.

In the power vacuum that followed the death of L. Ron Hubbard in 1986, high
school dropout David Miscavige emerged as the de facto head of Scientology.
Known to his enemies as ‘the poison dwarf,’ the diminutive and asthmatic
Miscavige even managed to depose Hubbard’s wife. He also ordered Hubbard’s son
Arthur to be his personal servant. Miscavige and his followers do their best to
attract high-profile members such as John Travolta, who has been in the cult for
20 years.

Gay porn star Paul Berrisi claims to have engaged in a homosexual
relationship with Travolta that began in 1982 and lasted eight years. Berrisi
claims that Travolta dumped him for another man in 1990. In revenge, he sold his
story to the National Enquirer in April of that year. Shortly after the story
broke, Travolta hastened to marry Scientologist Kelly Preston. In 2000 Travolta
starred in Battlefield Earth, a film adaptation of a Hubbard science
fiction novel. Critics roundly excoriated it as one of the worst films of all
time. Roger Ebert declared that it was like, “…taking a bus trip with someone
who has needed a bath for a long time. It’s not merely bad, but unpleasant in a
hostile way.”

Alt rocker Beck [Hansen] was raised in the cult. His parents have been
members for 30 years. When pressed in interviews to admit his Scientology bona
fides, he replies with a terse, ‘no comment.’

Obviously,
Tom Cruise is the most high-profile Scientologist in the world. For 20 years he
has been assiduously courted by David Miscavige. Both men traded effusive praise
at a 2005 Scientology gala in England. Referring to Cruise as “the most
dedicated Scientologist I know,” Miscavige presented him with the church’s first
Freedom Medal of Valor. According to Scientology’s Impact Magazine
Cruise replied, “I have never met a more competent, a more intelligent, a more
tolerant, a more compassionate being outside of what I have experienced from
LRH.”

Scientologist Nicole Kidman often accompanied Cruise to the church’s 500-acre
compound at Gilman Hot Springs in the California desert. Former member Maureen
Bolstad was at Gilman for 17 years before leaving after a falling-out. She
recalled a night from years ago when a state of emergency was declared at the
compound. Dozens of Scientologists worked through the night planting a field of
wild flowers so that Tom could impress Nicole. On another occasion, dozens
worked around the clock for three days renovating a skeet range so that
Miscavige could impress Cruise.

Snickering and jibes aside, Tom Cruise is a major Hollywood player. During
the filming of War of the Worlds, he insisted that a Scientology
info-booth be available on the set for interested crew members. He had it
staffed with ministers from the church. Director Spielberg later complained that
Cruise spent more time on film junkets promoting Scientology than the film.

And Scarlett Johansson was bounced from the cast of Mission Impossible
3 after proving unreceptive to Cruise’s Scientology pitch. Notwithstanding
all of the celebrity endorsements, the church continues to suffer large
financial losses. In May 2002, they paid more than $8 million to former member
Lawrence Wollersheim after a 22-year legal battle. Miscavige astutely surmised
that payment of the money would prevent additional evidence being presented in
court that could expose Scientology’s controversial IRS charitable tax exemption
to review or repeal and the risk that top executives could be jailed for
corporate and asset fraud.

Perhaps the final word on Scientology should go to Jamie Kennedy,
great-grandson of L. Ron Hubbard. Kennedy is a 25-year old slam poet from San
Francisco who bills himself, not inappropriately, as the ‘Hellspawn Leprechaun.’
He was expelled from high school after writing an epic poem vividly describing
the massacre of all of his teachers, followed by a school explosion. This was
pre-Columbine. He was kicked out of another school for obsessively writing about
sex, death and murder. Yet again, he was booted out of two college classes due
to student complaints and obscenity charges. His wife gave birth to a daughter a
couple of years ago and Kennedy prays that she is the female Antichrist. “They
can’t shut me up. I’ve made a career out of not giving a f___!” he declares.
Kennedy has the same red hair and occult predilections of his infamous relation.
“Genetically, I think we share some traits. In high school a psychiatrist asked
me if I had a history of mental illness in my family. I said, well, my
great-grandfather was a cult leader.”

"There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of
making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so
to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies,
so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will
rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by
propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods.
And this seems to be the final revolution."Aldous Huxley's lecture
to The California Medical School in San Francisco in 1961

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and
thus clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of
hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."H.L. Mencken

"Not only were many of the founders of the United States government Masons,
but they received aid from a secret and august body existing in Europe which
helped them to establish this country for A PECULIAR AND PARTICULAR PURPOSE
known only to the initiated few."Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings
of All Ages, pp. XC and XCI

"We shall have a World government, whether or not we like it. The only
question is whether World government will be achieved by conquest or
consent."James Paul Warburg, February 17, 1950, before the U.S.
Senate